Betrayed
by LuckyDuck29
Summary: Spinelli learns that Maxie slept with Franco. Based in part on spoilers and done in chapters because I want to see how it plays out on screen and incorporate some of those scenes.
1. Chapter 1

Spinelli felt a strange sense of apprehension when Sam and Jason asked him to meet them at Casa De Stone Cold. Jason had sounded oddly gentle on the phone.

"We didn't wanna show you this before," Jason said quietly, "because we knew it would hurt you, but we don't have a choice now. Things are getting way too serious with Franco and you need to know everything."

"We went to his studio," Sam said, "and this is what we found."

She took some pictures out of her purse. One was a painting; the others were photos. The canvass was covered in what appeared to be red paint, but was still clearly recognizable. It was Jason, surrounded by seven people; Sam, Michael, Carly, Morgan, Sonny, Maxie and Spinelli.

"This is most disturbing," Spinelli said. "It looks as if he's covered us all in blood."

"This next one we already knew about," Sam confessed, "but we didn't wanna hurt you or cause trouble or- I'm sorry, but we really thought we were protecting you."

Spinelli looked from Sam's guilty face to Jason's placid one. He wasn't showing anything, but Spinelli could see a hint of sympathy in his eyes. Then he looked back at Sam and the picture she handed him and his entire world changed.

Maxie was lying on the floor in a chalk outline with a blindfold over her eyes. He wanted to kill Franco. How could he do this? How could he force Maximista to take a photo like this? What had he done to her? Had he somehow scared her into it? That had to be the only explanation. Maximista would never do something like this voluntarily after what had happened to Georgie.

"There's one more," Sam said gently. "I am so sorry, Spinelli, but you need to see this. You need to know how dangerous Franco is because you could be in danger, too; that first picture suggests that no one close to Jason is safe."

He looked to Jason again; his expression hadn't changed. Or had it? Was the sympathy in his blue eyes more pronounced? Spinelli couldn't tell for sure, but he thought so. What could be worse than seeing his poor Maximista forced to enact a violent crime scene?

But he was wrong. There was something much worse. The next photo proved that Maxie had not been forced into anything. The next one showed her having sex with Franco and obviously enjoying it.

"She betrayed me," he said in a small, disbelieving voice. "That is most definitely not the look of a woman who was being forced to- She knowingly, willingly betrayed me!"

Now his voice was a hurt, angry shout. He looked at his two friends, who had known about the photo and hadn't told him.

"You knew?"

"I talked to Maxie about it," Jason said, "and she said she thought it was weird that he wanted to blindfold her and take that picture, but she was desperate to get that photo shoot for Crimson and she just did it."

"So you spoke to Maxie and showed Samantha and neither of you thought I needed to know that the woman who claimed to love me prostituted herself to get a photo shoot!"

"Hold on," Jason said.

"Hold on? The woman I loved, my best friend and my partner betrayed me and I'm supposed to hold on."

"Spinelli," Sam began, looking hurt.

"I have to get out of here."

He left everything behind, including his laptop, and ran out of the house and down the stairs, taking two at a time, not sure where he was going.


	2. Chapter 2

He decided to go to the office, hoping to be alone. He found Maxie sniping at Winifred again.

"Why don't you just leave town?" she was asking with annoyance. "You didn't get what you wanted; you lost your job at the FBI and Spinelli will never go for you because he knows what he has with me."

"I thought I did," he said from the doorway, "until I saw certain photos you were clearly hoping to keep hidden."

They both looked at him, Winifred with confusion and curiosity and Maxie with dread and guilt.

"You slept with him."

"What?"

"Don't deny it! I saw both photos; the one with you blindfolded in a chalk outline and the one of him on top of you and the two of you enjoying yourselves immensely!"

"He took a photo of us having sex, too?"

She closed her mouth and covered her face with her hands.

"You can leave my office now," he said coldly.

"No, please, Spinelli, I can explain."

"I'm not listening to anymore of your lies! You lied to me when you said you loved me. You lied to me when you said you wanted to marry me and you lied to me when you said nothing happened with Franco. When you said nothing happened you only meant the photo shoot wasn't happening; you didn't bother to tell me you'd cheated on the man you claimed to love!"

"I do love you."

"Save it for the next guy stupid enough to believe you. Get out!"

"I'm not leaving until-"

"This is my office and I don't want you here! Get out!"

She stared at him for a second, looking deeply into his eyes, probably hoping to find something she could use to her advantage. When she couldn't, she ran out of the office and slammed the door behind her.

He sat behind his desk with a pained sigh, almost a sob. Winifred put her hand on his shoulder.

"I am so sorry," she whispered.

He looked up at her and she put her arms around him.

"Sam and Stone Cold knew," he said softly. "They knew and didn't bother to tell me."

"What good would it have done had they told you?" she asked gently. "The results would still be the same. You would be crushed, Maxie would lose you and you might be angry with them for telling you."

"Why would I be angry with them for being honest with me? It's what I expect of my friends."

"Have you never kept a friend's secret from another friend to protect the friend being kept in the dark?"

He thought of Jake's paternity. He had kept Jason's secret from Sam to protect both his friends. How could he fault Sam and Jason for keeping Maxie's secret to try to protect Spinelli?

"You're right," he sighed. "It is Maxie who has truly betrayed The Jackal, not his mentor and his partner."

He glanced away from her and his eye fell on another photo on his desk, one of his non-wedding pictures. It was a group photo of everyone standing as they sang the chorus to "I Want to Know What Love is." Maxie and Spinelli stood in the center, both beaming. He had been genuinely happy that day. How could he have known that two months and two photographs would take that happiness away from him?

"How drastically everything can change in the space of a day. I spoke to Georgie and then a few hours later found her body. My wedding day became a non-wedding day, but we were still happy. I thought we'd both matured when we decided not to be married immediately."

He gave a short, bitter, ironic laugh.

"Apparently the non-wedding only gave Maxie leave to sleep with a total stranger. I knew something was wrong; she's been behaving so differently since the night of Franco's gallery appearance. How many lies did she tell to try to cover up her infidelity? How long would I have gone on believing her if Stone Cold and Fair Samantha had not shown me those photographs?"

"Why would they do that to you?" she asked, horrified.

"I don't know. I mean, I left before they could explain; I was so angry."

He looked away from the picture, back at her.

"Stone Cold never reveals information unless absolutely necessary. They said something about the danger Franco poses. I should go find out."

He stood up, glanced again at the photo and put it in a drawer under some papers. It physically hurt him to look at it.

"It is most fortunate that the wedding never took place," he said.

He could hear the pain and anger in his voice and Winifred looked at him with sad, sympathetic eyes.

"I can now walk away from The Faithless One without any messy paper work."

He paused in the doorway and looked over his shoulder. Winifred was still watching him.

"Thank you, Priestess. You've been a true friend today."

She smiled at him as he closed the door softly behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing he heard, all the way down the flight of stairs leading up to the Penthouse, was Maxie's shrill, furious voice.

"This is your fault!"

Then he heard a slap.

"Maxie!" Sam said in a shocked, angry tone.

"Why did you show him those photos?"

"We had to," Sam said. "Franco is a danger to Jason and everyone close to him; that includes Spinelli and because he loves you it also includes you."

"Yeah, well, thanks to you two he doesn't want anything to do with me now. He threw me out of his office."

"Well," Sam said without sympathy, "if it's any consolation, he's mad at us, too. He seems to think we knew you slept with Franco because we knew about the photo Franco sent to Jason."

"You created this, Maxie!" Jason yelled over both of them. "You decided to go to the studio with Franco, someone you didn't even know! You decided to let him take compromising photos of you and you decided to sleep with him knowing what it would do to Spinelli! Don't you blame me for your actions! You don't get to throw Spinelli aside whenever you feel like it!"

"I didn't do that!"

"That is precisely what you did," Spinelli said.

He came in and closed the door. He looked at Jason and felt his eyes widen at the handprint on his friend and mentor's left cheek.

"You're back," she said, and tried to hug him.

He shrugged her off.

"Please, let me-"

"What are you doing here?"

"What do you think I'm doing here? I came to-"

"Slap Stone Cold because you can't accept responsibility for your own actions?"

"OK, I did it. I slept with Franco. But it was only the one time, Spinelli, and I feel horrible."

"Of course you do, because you were caught!"

"Please, try to understand."

"Oh, I understand. You would do anything to further your career, even if it means betraying the man you're supposed to love."

"I do love you! Stop saying I don't love you!"

"Stop saying you do! If you did you never would have done this!"

"I never said I was a good person!"

"Being good has nothing to do with it, Maxie; being faithful does, and you clearly do not know the meaning of the word!"

"That's not true."

"Did you even think of me? Did you give me even a nanosecond's thought before you threw me away, or did you just decide from the moment The Fashionista ordered you to get that photo shoot that I was perfectly expendable?"

"You're not-"

"You dispensed of me the minute you allowed Franco to take those pictures!"

"I didn't allow him; I didn't even know he took them."

"You still posed for him; you still had sex with him. It didn't matter that you would be trashing our entire relationship. Maxie was getting what Maxie wanted and that was all that mattered, all that ever will truly matter to you."

She started to cry again. He was too angry to care that he was hurting her; she had hurt him worse than anything he could or would ever do to her.

"I don't know why I'm so surprised. I mean, this is not the first time you've been unfaithful. You slept with Logan to hurt Lulu when you were supposedly in love with Cooper. You kissed Johnny to get back at Lulu for looking at you the wrong way at work. Why wouldn't I be surprised that you would sell your body to Franco for a few pictures?"

She gasped a sob. Sam and Jason looked shocked.

"How can you say something so horrible to me?"

"I'm only telling the truth."

Still crying, she pushed past him, opened the door and ran down the stairs, not bothering to close it. Without waiting for her to disappear from view, he closed it for her and looked at his two friends.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, breaking eye contact. "I know you didn't betray me. I know you kept her secret to keep me from getting hurt."

"You don't need to apologize," Jason said. "You were hurt and angry; we knew it would be a bad shock for you."

"But, Spinelli, please believe us," Sam said. "We knew about the crime scene photo, but we didn't know Maxie had slept with Franco."

"I believe you."

He looked back at Sam.

"I kept Stone Cold's secret pain from you for months in an effort to help try to protect all of you. He needed to keep his son safe and I wished to respect his wishes; I never set out to betray you either."

"I know," she said, hugging him.

He looked at Jason as he returned Sam's hug.

"Stone Cold has endured much irritation, disrespect and at times downright cruelty from The Faithless One on behalf of The Jackal. Please accept my humble thanks."

"Cruelty?"

Jason looked genuinely confused.

"All that self-serving filth she used to spout about you having no human emotion."

"A lot of people think that, Spinelli, but it doesn't matter. Everyone who really knows me knows better and I'm glad you're one of them.

Sam let go of him and sat back on the couch next to Jason. Spinelli sat on Sam's other side.

"Listen," Jason said cautiously, "we need to talk about Franco."

"I know," he sighed. "You were going to tell me about the dangers he poses, as evidenced by that disturbing painting of you and those closest to you."

A thought struck him and he stared off into space.

"I wonder how quickly he will realized The Faithless One has been removed from this particular picture."

"He may not," Jason said, "but I'll take care of Maxie."

"She may have no desire for your protection. I don't want anything bad to happen to her, but she may rebel against you now that-"

"She's gonna get my protection whether she wants it or not."

He reached across Sam and put his hand on Spinelli's shoulder.

"Don't worry," he said gently. "I'll keep her safe."

"The Constant Commissioner will be happy," he said with a pained smile. "The babbling idiot is finally out of his daughter's life."

"Don't," Sam said sadly.

"You're not an idiot," Jason said firmly. "So you babble sometimes. Who doesn't? Maxie does it all the time."

Spinelli nodded with a frown.

"If Mack is true to form, you and The Brusk Lady of Justice may have to free The Jackal from false imprisonment in the not so distant future. Maxie's actions are my fault and mine alone, according to her father."

"If he tries that," Sam said fiercely, "he can expect a fight on his hands this time. You know, Mack's obsession with Maxie's love life borders on sick and disgusting."

Spinelli couldn't help the surprised laugh that escaped him. Jason rolled his eyes, then looked at the painting. Sam and Spinelli took the hint and they began to discuss what to do about Franco.


	4. Chapter 4

To Spinelli's surprise and relief, Commissioner Scorpio did not come racing over to Casa De Stone Cold that night and try to arrest him. There would be no grounds, but that didn't stop him from making threats. He had tried to prevent Spinelli from putting a ring on Maxie's finger with the same threat. He made it perfectly clear that he had no compunctions about abusing his power to get what he wanted. Spinelli supposed that was partly where some of Maxie's forcefulness came from. That was fine when she was dealing with career situations, but in a relationship, it only made her domineering and unreasonable, as he discovered the next day.

Maxie came to the office again. This time she was holding a stack of magazines.

"Pick one," she said before Spinelli could speak.

He stared at the stack, which she'd just plopped on his desk, in confusion.

"What?"

"I cheated on you, now you're gonna cheat on me, then things will be right and we can forget this ever happened."

"What?" he asked again incredulously.

She could not have just said what he thought he'd heard. She was not ordering him to sleep with someone else.

"Yeah, the betrayals cancel each other out. See? Then we can erase them and I won't feel guilty anymore and we can be back the way we were."

He stared at her, totally speechless, a rare state for him.

"It's the closest thing we have to a time machine, Spinelli," she said impatiently. "Now pick a model, I'll call and set up a meeting, you can sleep with her and we'll be done with it."

He found his voice again when his anger overshadowed his disbelief. She had broken his trust and now she was trying to dictate his reactions? He intended to put a stop to this immediately. He was her partner in this relationship, not her puppet. She would not pull strings to get him to jump through hoops so she could feel better about tossing him aside like an unwanted toy just long enough to sleep with Franco and then trying to pick him up again. Who was she to order him to sleep with anyone? The prostitute analogy came to his mind again. Now she was the pimp and she was trying to prostitute him. He hated having these uncharacteristic thoughts, but he couldn't seem to push them away.

"I'm not gonna sleep with someone else."

"OK, you don't want someone from a magazine. You need an emotional connection. Maybe we can get someone you already know and-"

"Listen to me closely!"

His fury was fighting to boil over, making him sound much colder than intended, but he would keep a tight reign on his volume. Sam was in her office with a client. It would be unprofessional for their client to here him yelling at his girlfriend.

"You should know me. If you know that I need an emotional connection with someone before having sex with them, then you should also know that I would never use that person in such a thoughtless, careless manner, especially not someone I care about. I will not sleep with anyone else in order to eradicate your guilt over your betrayal. That is not going to happen. Is that clear?"

"But if you cheat on me after I cheated on you, then we can pretend neither of us ever cheated and everything can go back to normal."

"Do you honestly think that my cheating on you is going to cause my trust in you to magically reassert itself?"

"It would help."

He shook his head in disbelief.

"I suppose in your world, where two or three wrongs make one right, that would work, but not in my world. Did your breaking up Lucky's marriage to Elizabeth miraculously repair the damage to the relationship between Dillon and Georgie? Did your bet with Logan do anything to fix their problems?"

"No," she admitted in a small voice.

"I rest my case."

"I need you to forgive me, Spinelli."

His anger was disappearing slowly, going underground. Now there was only sadness and regret.

"I don't even know how to begin to get past this, but I do know that revenge sex is not the answer."

"Then what can I do?"

He wanted to forgive her. He still loved her. If Sam and Jason could get past all the pain they'd caused each other, it was possible that Spinelli and Maxie could get back what they'd had before she'd slept with Franco. But at the moment, he couldn't pretend everything was fine. He couldn't kiss her, take her in his arms and call her his Fair Maximista knowing what he knew. The pain was too fresh.

"I need time," he said quietly. "I need time and space to deal with this."

"But we're a couple. We're supposed to face things together."

"You say that only minutes after trying to convince me to sleep with someone else? That's not facing things together. You conveniently forgot that we were a couple when you decided to sleep with Franco."

She looked away. He took a deep breath and spoke less harshly.

"I'm sorry. I'm really trying not to react in anger, but I can't just flip a switch and turn it off. That's why I'm asking you, please, to give me the time and distance I need to sort out my feelings."

She hesitated, then looked back at him tearfully.

"How much time?"

"I don't know," he said honestly. "I'll call you, and I promise not to take too long."

She nodded, sniffled, picked up her magazines and headed for the door.

"Maxie?"

She stopped and turned to him with hope in her eyes.

"I'm sorry about all the cruel things I said yesterday. I mean, about you selling your body an about throwing Cooper in your face."

"You don't need to apologize. I really did all that."

"But it was most unfair of me to use it against you."

"Why? I used Georgie's feelings against you."

"But the same principle applies in that situation. My cheating on you is not gonna make it right that you cheated on me. My using Cooper against you is not gonna make it right that you used Georgie against me. I do not wish to be the kind of person who uses people as weapons."

"Like me."

"No, that was not what I meant-"

"But it's true. I used Georgie against you. I used Johnny and Logan against Lulu. I-"

"All that is in the past. We need to focus on the issue at hand. To that end, I need you to tell me something and I NEED YOU TO BE HONEST WITH Me."

"What?"

"What did I do?"

She looked confused.

"How did I fail you? What did I do that made you turn to Franco? I mean, we're a couple, but you turned to someone else, so I must have done something to contribute to your decision."

"No!"

She looked horrified.

"It was nothing you did or didn't do, Spinelli; it was all me. I'm the one who went to his studio. I'm the one who willingly posed in that chalk outline and I'm the one who slept with him."

"That brings me back to a question you never answered yesterday. Did you think about me? Did I factor into your decision at all, or did you not think about your non-husband until it was over."

She said nothing; her face said it all. She let out a soft sob. His anger wanted to surface again, but he kept it in check.

"Thank you for your honesty."

She hesitated for a few seconds before speaking.

"I'll give you the time and space you need. But can you promise me that we'll be together again when it's over?"

"I can't promise. I want us to be; I still love you. I just need to process what you've done."

"I understand."

She moved to give him a tentative hug. He didn't resist, but didn't return the hug either. He wanted to hold her, but the image of her with Franco popped into his head and he couldn't bring himself to put his arms around her. He didn't know at this point if he would ever be able to erase those images and didn't want to give her false hope.

"I'll wait for your call."

She kissed his cheek, gave him a sad smile and left the office.


	5. Chapter 5

As Christmas approached, Spinelli considered spending it with Maxie. He wanted to try. If they could get through this holiday, a time of peace and love, maybe they had a chance.

He called her the day before and explained that he wanted to try to begin the healing of their relationship by spending Christmas Eve together. She accepted eagerly and invited him to her place. Lulu would be visiting her family.

He brought a small, modest tree over. It was sitting alone in a part of the lot where all the bigger trees had obviously been snatched up. He always felt sorry for smaller trees; their sizes seemed to be the only reason they were rejected.

The apartment was fully decorated and Lulu said Maxie had stolen Kate's tree because Kate was not spending Christmas at her house. But the guilty look was back on her face again, making him think of Franco. Before he could stop himself, they were arguing again.

They were also using poor Lulu as a sounding board, each telling her to tell the other what they were trying to say, but not giving her a chance to speak. When Dominick showed up to pick up Lulu, she ran out with him as fast as she could.

"Tell Spinelli that he knew I was a mess when he wouldn't marry me!" Maxie screamed as Dominick knocked on the door.

"Franco is a dangerous man," Spinelli said later.

He was calmer now, trying to have this conversation rationally and without resorting to accusations or shouting.

"You were a means to an end to him. You were nothing. But you slept with him to get a photo shoot."

"No, I didn't do it for the photo shoot."

"Then why did you?"

"I don't know. I always destroy what matters to me. I'm sorry, Spinelli."

She was crying. It hurt him to see her cry, but it hurt even more to see in his mind the images of her and Franco. They became very clear when he looked at her. He had heard once that men were visual thinkers when it came to sex. He fully understood what that meant now. It wasn't just men sitting around talking about sex and visualizing their partners. It applied to men and the girls they loved, and men they slept with. Maxie had had other partners before Spinelli; he knew that. But Franco had been her partner when she and Spinelli were together, which change everything. Now he was seeing Franco in his place instead of him. Franco was giving Maxie pleasure and satisfaction, not Spinelli. As much as he wanted to, he didn't know if he was going to be able to get through Christmas with her after all.

There was also her assertion that she always destroyed what mattered. Their relationship mattered to her. He mattered to her. How could he believe she would never do this again. How could he ever trust her again knowing that she not only destroyed herself, but admittedly destroyed the things and people she loved? Learning of her betrayal had crushed him. How could he forgive her knowing that she had not thought of his feelings even once when she'd made the decision to sleep with another man? She'd broken his heart. He didn't want to have it healed only to have her thoughtlessly break it again.

"I didn't matter when you slept with Franco."

"Yes, you did!"

"You admitted through your silence when I asked you that I was not in your thoughts when you were with him."

"You don't wanna sleep with another woman to get even with me. I won't try to get you to do that again; I promise. But what can I do, Spinelli? I'll do anything to make this up to you. Just tell me what you want and I'll do it."

"What I want doesn't matter anymore. As you said, we have no time machine."

They were interrupted by a knock at the door. Spinelli stood up to answer it.

"No, please, don't answer that," Maxie said. "We need to work this out."

But the knocker persisted and Spinelli did answer.

"Maxie, are you all right?" Mack asked.

He turned angrily to Spinelli.

"What did you say to her?"

He proceeded to mention what the holidays represented for Maxie, beginning with reminding him, as if he needed reminding, that Georgie had died in December.

"Did you even ask her about her mom?" Mack demanded.

He hadn't, which made him feel simultaneously guilty and angry that he felt guilty. Mack was manipulating him, but Spinelli couldn't refute anything he was saying.

"Dad, I love you," Maxie said, "but you can't just walk in and fix my life. Spinelli and I have some issues that we need to work out and we need to do it alone."

Mack shook his head and Spinelli knew that if The Commissioner had anything to say about it, Maxie would not be allowed to spend another second with him tonight. He might even be arrested on some trumped up charge. If Commissioner Scorpio chose to abuse his power, Stone Cold and The Brusk Lady of Justice would be forced to drop their Christmas Eve plans in order to keep Spinelli from spending the night in prison.

"Get your coat. We're going to Robin's. You need to spend Christmas with your family, not with this nincompoop."

"No, Dad, I'm not going. I'm gonna stay here with Spinelli and fix this."

"Are you sure?"

Maxie nodded.

"I love you," Mack said, hugging her.

"I love you, too."

"If you ever make her cry again," Mack said to Spinelli as he headed for the door, "I will throw you in jail."

Spinelli fought to suppress his anger. Not only did he have to contend with Maxie's betrayal and deception, but he had to put up with threats and insults from Mack when Spinelli had done nothing wrong.

But Maxie was right. The two of them needed to work this out between them. Her father's opinions did not factor into their situation, especially since he didn't know what their situation was.

But Mack's manipulation had worked. He didn't want to argue with Maxie anymore, no matter how necessary the argument was. In memory of Georgie, if for no other reason, he wanted them to have a peaceful Christmas. They mutually agreed that for now, they would forget about Franco and their problems.


	6. Chapter 6

But they realized after about an hour that it wasn't going to work. Spinelli was trying, but he just couldn't see her the way he had before learning of her interaction with Franco. He couldn't see his Maximista. Now he only saw someone who had hurt him for no valid reason. He saw someone who lived in the moment so completely that at any particular moment he would stop mattering to her long enough for her to pleasure herself with someone else. He tried to hide his feelings, but Maxie soon caught on.

"You cant' do it, can you?"

There was sadness, regret and resignation in her voice.

"I really am trying," he said honestly.

"What is it? What's holding you back?"

He sighed painfully as he looked at her.

"It's the photos. It's the images that won't leave my mind; I can't escape them. I'm trying. I've been trying since the first time I saw them. I thought I could do it tonight, especially after your father mentioned Wise Georgie. I thought I could do it for you, and me, and her, but I can't."

"What can I do?"

She was crying again.

"I don't think there's anything either of us can do. I love you, Maxie, but this will destroy both of us if it continues. Every time I look at you now I see those photos. I see you in that chalk outline with a blindfold over your eyes and I see him on top of you. There are times when the images blend together, causing it to look even more horrible."

"Maybe you need more time. If that's what you need, I won't-"

"No," he said gently. "No more pretending, no more time and distance. I think it's time for us to face the truth."

"You're braking up with me."

She said it with that same combination of regret, sadness and resignation. He nodded, feeling his already broken heart breaking all over again.

"Do you hate me now?"

It came out as a child's whine.

"No," he said, swallowing back threatening tears. "But I can't keep wondering. I trusted you. I thought you would be faithful to me, that we were committed. But then I saw those photos and everything changed. You broke my trust and I can't wake up every day and wonder if this is the day you're gonna betray me again. But I can't not wonder either now that I've seen those photos, now that I know what you've done once and could conceivably do again."

"I won't!"

"I didn't think you would this time either. I believe that you didn't know about the pictures, but I also believe you when you say that you were not forced into anything. You can't take this back. There is no do-over and your actions cannot be erased any more than those pictures can. We could destroy them, but it doesn't mean they never existed. It doesn't mean that you did not willingly perform the actions depicted in those photographs. If I have to spend the rest of our life together knowing what you did and dreading that it will happen again, that we could end up back here, feeling the way we do now, then I really will end up hating you and I don't want that any more than you do."

She sobbed, covering her face with her hands.

"I am truly sorry," he said, unable to stop his own tears anymore. "I wish I were able to get past this. Perhaps if those pictures did not exist it would be possible, but they do and I can't ignore them."

"I'm never gonna be your Maximista again, am I?" she asked, lifting her face out of her hands to look at him.

He smiled slightly through the tears.

"Georgie was right."

"About what?"

"When I was trying to get Lulu to choose me over Logan, Wise Georgie told me that when you put someone up on a pedestal, you set them up to fall."

"What are you saying?"

"Maximista was my fantasy and I forced it on you. She represented my idea of the perfect woman. But there is no such thing as perfection in any human being. If I'd had a more realistic view of you, perhaps those photos would not have such a powerful influence over me."

"If you admit that, why can't you give us another chance?"

"Tonight was our other chance. I wanted- I needed- to see if I could see past the photos, your actions, my anger, to the woman I love. I've been trying all night, but I just can't do it, Maxie. It's just not going away. I can't fight it."

"So you're gonna end us over a couple of pictures."

He knew she was trying to sound angry and resentful, but he heard the truth in her voice. But he spoke the words anyway.

"We ended when you decided to sleep with Franco. All I'm doing now is putting an end to the pretenses."

"Can we at least be friends again? Please?"

He nodded and she threw her arms around him, sobbing.

"I'm so sorry," she said against his shoulder.

"Me, too," he said as his tears fell into her hair.

"I don't wanna see you leave."

"OK."

She let go of him and ran into her bedroom. As he listened to her sobs, muffled by her closed door, he forced himself to stop crying. He wiped his eyes, took a deep breath, let it out in a sigh and left her apartment.

Sam and Jason looked at him in surprise when he opened the door. They'd been heading toward the stairs, but turned back when he entered the Penthouse.

"Are you OK?" Sam asked with concern, seeing that he'd been crying.

He knew the manly thing to do would be to say that he was fine, that he and Maxie had broken up tonight, but that he was OK with it. But he only stood there, unable to get the words out.

"Did something else happen with you and Maxie?" Jason asked.

That he could answer truthfully.

"We're over."

"I'm sorry," Jason said quietly.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Sam asked gently.

He shook his head.

"You need to be alone for a while?" Jason asked.

Spinelli nodded.

"You gonna stay down here?"

He thought about it, but shook his head. He needed complete solitude for now."

"I'll be in the pink room."

"OK."

Jason moved aside so he could go up the stairs. As he closed his door, he saw Sam and Jason going up the stairs into Jason's room.

His eye fell on his favorite picture of him and Maxie, the one of them taken with Santa last year. He took it off the night stand and put it in the drawer. He knew someday he would be able to look at it without hurting, but for now, it was just a painful reminder of how things had changed since last year. Last Christmas Eve had brought so much promise, so much happiness for him and the residents of Port Charles who had benefited from the gifts they'd given and received. This Christmas Eve had seen the end of Spinelli and Maxie.

But a new year was coming. They would remain friends. The ever present, unrelenting optimist in him believed the new year would bring new surprises. Losing Georgie had led him and Maxie to each other. Maybe losing each other would lead them to the ones they were truly meant to be with. His wish for the new year was that both of them would find happiness and peace.


End file.
